1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to water safety devices.
2. Background Information
Any loss of a child is tragic, but a loss through drowning is among the most so. Why? Because: (1) such a loss is almost always completely preventable (unlike most disease); and (2) the loss arises from something (unlike transportation, which is a modern necessity) which is usually, merely recreational. To a parent or loved one who has lost a child to drowning, these factors make the loss, however bad to begin with, all the more tortuous.
In 1998 (the last year for which the statistics have as yet been fully compiled), 4,406 people drowned, of which 1,003 were children younger than 15 years old. At present, this makes drowning the second leading cause of death among children in the United States, and in Arizona, Florida, and California, it is the number one cause of death for children under five.
Were one to assume that a swimming pool is a safe environment for a child (as opposed to open water at a beach, etc.) he or she would be mistaken. 350 children drown in swimming pools each year in the Untied States, and an additional 2400 more are nearly drowned according to government statistics; many of which result in totally disabling brain damage.
Adult supervision of children in and near water is quite correctly cited as the single most important safety practice for preventing drownings, but even that falls well short in adequately addressing the threat to our children. A U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission study, conducted over a five year period, showed that, at the time of the incidents, most victims were, in fact, being supervised by one or both parents.
Clearly something more must be done to address the losses of children to drowning, in this and all countries.
Various safety devices are certainly well-known. Life jackets, “swim wings”, flotation belts, and even garments with integral flotation units are known. However, either through non-use, incorrect use, or product design deficiencies, these products are self-evidently not solving the problem.
A child safety product is needed which: (1) is optimally effective when used; (2) is, because of design simplicity to the end-user, unlikely to be used incorrectly so as to compromise effectiveness; (3) is resilient and robust (e.g. will not become dysfunctional during normal use); (4) inherently conveys its safety potential to those who must be motivated to purchase the product, even though they are not the intended end-users; (5) is adequately non-intrusive during use to avoid resistance to use by children (is comfortable); and (6) is sufficiently aesthetically pleasing as to not put-off parents uring their purchasing decisions, or children during use (something which, while to many is, and should be a “non-issue”, has been shown to be a contributing factor in purchasing and use of even safety-related products).
Presently available products fall short of one or a combination of these objectives. This is true, even of the product which is most closely related to that of the present invention—the child's swim wear product with integral flotation panels (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,199 issued to Grunstein).
The Grunstein garment is certainly a step in the right direction for child-protective swim wear in its inclusion of integral flotation panels. However, Grunstein fails to recognize that, under certain circumstances, the flotation panels may become dislodged from the garment, with tragic consequences. Furthermore, the Grunstein garment, with the specifically prescribed smooth outer surface in the areas of the flotation panels (see Column 4, lines 37, et seq), causes the garment to unattractively resemble an awkward marriage between a swimsuit and a old style life jacket. Not only is the seen as unattractive and, in some observers' words, “almost therapeutic”, this feature de-emphasizes the most important feature of the product—its flotation features. Grunstein completely failed to recognize these deficiencies in his garment design—deficiencies which might, at first, seem trivial, but actually deter purchases of such life-saving products, according to information gathered by the present inventors.
At least one other deficiency of the Grunstein design is its lack of attention to the distribution of flotation from front to back of the garment. Particularly for a very young child, a garment which, while enabling a child to float, does nothing to urge the child to float on his or her back, is, at best, only a half-effective safety aid.
Clearly, something must be done to address child drownings, and getting life-saving products into the hands of parents, and having them placed in active use, can be a vital step in this direction.